I'm trying to turn toward my peripheral vision to uncover my blindspot(s)--where an answer lies--but what I see and hear instead is this constant barrage from my mind: Get to your 14 things to do, go through those 4 different pending email folders, make those calls, strategize then plan then do then act then go, go, go or you are in trouble. To escape this noise, I click on an email and suddenly find myself reading Will Marre's blog, where he is addressing something similar in his post "Take Back Your Life." He describes the increase of stress in our personal work worlds, and this part speaks to me:
Those who have decided to work for themselves as consultants or starting a new enterprise have so much pressure to outperform that the velocity of our warship has to always be moving at “warp.” If we slow down the immense gravity of our death-star economy will crush us. Whew.
That's it. The pressure I too often feel has put some kind of neck brace on me. I can't turn my head toward a very real force that is trying to get my attention. This is why I'm so antsy. I need to shift but the immense gravity weighs on me and I can't move.
So now I'm trying to access a different part of my being through the less rigid, right side of my brain. I rifle through some writing and find a poem of mine that recalls a long-ago moment in Napa, CA. Yes, this is close to the feeling I'm having....I cool against this tree trunk
with the wood-wind in my hair
with the wood-wind in my hair
and the sound of motors
in my mind
I remember the need I felt then to dip my head into some different kind of water:
Right now I crave water that has the texture of birth
and I would dip my head in it to show
what can be replaced
My hair would not turn gold
like the boy from the story
My hair would not turn gold
like the boy from the story
but I would find alloys from this strange land
in the puddle near the drain
of the bin I wash in
to start my day
I just took a shower. I was consciously trying to wash out the "alloys" from my hair in order to feel different, to emerge with a new mindset that would enable me to see what I needed to do in a way I couldn't before. But I discovered that nothing washed out of my hair. The alloys, if anything, were now a more permanent part of me--the gray in my hair. Which I realize I can cover or hide but can never replace.